For many years before the outbreak of the Civil War the United States had become an object of anxiety or of envy to many, of wonder and curiosity to all mankind. Their prosperity, attached by a thousand beneficent links to the prosperity of England, seemed even more splendid and more secure. The rapid growth of their population united the marvels of Lancashire with the marvels of Australia; it created vast cities, and peopled an enormous territory with their overflow. The accumulation of riches was as great as in Europe, whilst they were diffused so much more generally that poverty as well as idleness was all but unknown. All the sources of agricultural and of mineral wealth enjoyed by the old world were tenfold multiplied in the new, and were exempt from the drain of those political causes which restrain commercial enterprise, and expend on objects that yield no adequate return the resources of the people. The money thus rescued from unproductive waste was reserved to extend and equalise education.
In a society organised like our own it is desirable that education should be fitted, in nature and degree, to the special character and occupation of the several ranks in life to which each man belongs, but in a country where there is no distinction of class, a child is not born to the
- ↑ A lecture delivered at the Literary and Scientific Institution, Bridgnorth, on 18th January 1866.
